


Deep Roots

by LittleSpacePrince



Series: Tale Teller's Daily Writing Challenge [19]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alpha Tony, Alpha Tony Stark, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Bonding, Falling In Love, Family, Fluff, Kinda, Love Stories, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Bruce, Omega Bruce Banner, Omega Verse, Origin Story, Origins, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 15:56:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13791096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleSpacePrince/pseuds/LittleSpacePrince
Summary: Prompt:Your character is in love, what do they do?In which the story of how they fell in love is told.





	Deep Roots

The loneliest man in the universe. Damned to a life under the constant disguise of aliases and fake IDs. Never able to settle in one place for too long, knowing that roots were hard to pluck free, and when he could be uncovered at any moment, he didn't have the time to fiddle with uprooting. So he didn't plant roots, didn't make friends, didn't allow himself to get too attached to anything. He was set adrift, damned to a lonely existence because of a mistake. An accident. An incident. 

Then the Avengers came along. Natasha Romanoff came to take him in, bring him along for a hell of a ride, one that never truly let him off. One that set him down a different road. One that brought him aboard the Helicarrier, crossing paths with people he would one day deem family. One that brought him right to the doorstep of the man who would claim him, the man he fell so head over heels in love with, the man who would be the father of his children. 

Bruce hadn't allowed himself to fall in love since the accident, but somehow, he found himself there for the first time in years. The loneliest man in the universe, falling in love. Damn near comical. 

He didn't remember falling in love with Tony. Perhaps it was the first touch, or those first nights spent in the lab, with teasing banter and something like deep conversation. Perhaps it was in the first moments when he began to realize that Tony wasn't afraid of him, or what he could be, or the beast within him. Perhaps it was in the first time that he recognized admiration and respect in his eyes, rather than fear and apprehension and disgust. Perhaps it was in the fact someone was seeing him for his accomplishments rather than his mistakes. Perhaps it was because Tony made him feel human again. 

Whatever it was, Bruce fell quickly, and hard. The first kiss came just weeks after New York, down in the labs of Stark Tower, locked up and alone and laughing harder than Bruce had laughed in years. He blamed it on the laughter, so much of it leaving him too oxygen-deprived to think clearly. But in the midst of their laughter, Bruce leaned in and kissed the alpha, and Tony kissed him back, holding him tight and kissing him the whole night long, until the sun rose and they had to face the day again. Bruce didn't know when he fell in love, but he knew when he realized it. Right there. Right then. 

They kept the whole thing quiet, for Bruce's sake. Tony had wanted to tell the world, wanted to show the entire world that he'd found himself an omega, that they were together and that they were happy and that the playboy had at last found someone worth settling down with. But Bruce had insisted on keeping it to themselves, never letting anyone outside of the Avengers know. He wasn't particularly interested in becoming more of a spectacle than he already was. Besides, Bruce kept it in his head that roots were too dangerous to be planted. Honestly, how long could Tony possibly love him before getting bored? The defective omega, the omega who couldn't even risk heat without turning into a giant green rage monster. The omega who couldn't even offer him sex and consummation without risking all of Manhattan. How long could Tony possibly want him? No, better to keep things quiet. The inevitable fallout would hurt less that way. 

They didn't really talk about sex. They didn't push boundaries, didn't dare go any further than kissing. His heart rate would get too high, and the Hulk wasn't worth the risk. Still, Bruce found himself finding guilt every time that he accidentally walked in on Tony masturbating, or felt the alpha’s erection forming and rubbing against his leg. But Tony didn't leave. Even as time ticked on, far past what Bruce would've expected it to last, Tony Stark stayed. 

The first mention of sex came after Ultron’s reign of terror began, while holed up at Barton’s farm. A meltdown, or something damn close to it, Tony’s anger toward himself boiling over until he was threatening to destroy a child’s playroom, throwing whatever he could get his hands on until Bruce settled him down. In the heat of his rage, the alpha pinned him to the wall and kissed him ferociously, far more heated than anything that they'd even approached before. It was the beeping of his heart monitor that pulled them apart, and that was that. No conversation. No crying, no apologies. Tony simply walked away. And it was Bruce's deepest regret for letting him. 

That was the last thing close to romance that came for two years. Sokovia, then Sakaar, and their paths didn't cross again until three weeks after Ragnarok. Three weeks after leaping from the ship, surrendering himself to the mindless beast, his last thoughts being of Tony, unsure of whether or not he would ever even see him again. Thor and Loki had brought the Asgardians to earth, reuniting with the Avengers, and three weeks was all that it took for Tony to come up with a solution, to bring the omega back to him. 

Gamma blockers. 

Saving grace, he might have called it, pulled from the prison block of the Hulk’s mind and back into his own skin, back into Tony’s arms again. Bruce's ragged sobs and questions of whether or not he was dead and his how's and his why's and his what happened’s followed suit, until he settled in Tony’s arms, and Tony settled between his thighs, taking him to bed and making love to him for the first time that night. And for the first time, neither had to worry about the beeping of his monitor. 

Bruce had only ever seen Tony cry once. Bruce took his knot that night, after love was made soft and slow, Tony slowly pushing past his rim until it popped and latched, tying them together for the first time. With this, ragged sobs tore from Tony’s chest, burying his face into the omega’s neck and begging him to stay, begging him to never let go. And vows were made, and Bruce promised. With such commitment, two years of searching, two years of faithfulness, Bruce stopped doubting, and knotted and sated and sleepy and crying and joyous, the omega finally decided to plant his roots. 

It didn't take long to convince him to mate, to cast away all lingering doubts and commit himself entirely. In the form of the Hulk, he didn't go into heat, the beast seemingly immune. But when he was still small, he had to keep to his suppressants, or risk the fever, and inevitably, the beast. And the beast would come calling, whether by his own hand unable to resist the place between his thighs, or by some passing alpha catching his scent and breaking in - hardly an uncommon occurrence around the places that Bruce had drifted through. But with the blockers came newfound freedom, and for a month, he neglected to take his pills, until heat came rolling around for the first time since before the accident. 

They were all manners of safe, or, at least, as safe as they could be. Neither one was quite ready for kids, not yet, so they took all the proper precautions. Condoms, specially made for rut. Tony had started him on birth control three weeks in advance. Hell, they'd even stocked up on Plan B. But even still, it wasn't truly _safe._ Sex wasn't meant to be safe, especially not in the throes of heat. It was an act of great depth and consequence, by all manners meant to be open and exposed. It was meant to draw forth scary and mysterious feelings of devotion and desire. Call it what you will, but one could never call it _safe._

Still, heat came, and hard as it was, fevered and desperate and minds clouded with biological need and desire, they bonded, scars marking their necks to prove it. Heat proved to be something sacred, a religious experience, one that made the eternal skeptic want to get down on his knees and pray, made him want to confess every apostasy and cry out to the only god he cared to worship, the one that pushed between his thighs. 

Even as the heat faded and Bruce returned to his pills, knowing that his body couldn't handle it so well every month, they both bore marks to remind them of it. Scars worn proudly, even after heat came and went. The media noticed quickly, paparazzi snapping pictures with conspiracies as to who had mated with the famous Tony Stark. Eventually, though, Bruce came forward, and they silenced the rumors, despite all previous reservations. He wanted the world to know that Tony Stark was his alpha, and there was nothing that would pull them apart.

They fell into routine, a comfortable routine as mates, as heroes, as celebrities, as scientists, as whatever else they cared to call themselves. It was comfortable, it was easy, it was exactly what Bruce had always wanted. Finally, he'd found a way to live happily despite his condition, at last mended after the accident. But there was something that he had always wanted, something that he had given up on the moment the Hulk had burst from his veins, something that he decided couldn't be done before even making the attempt. 

Family. Kids. 

It took two years of convincing. Tony learned of his desires not long after they mated, and decided to take it upon himself to make them reality. Silly things to dream of, Bruce told him. No way that he could carry a pregnancy to term, no way that he could even conceive. And even if he could, what hideous beasts would emerge from his loins? The poison in his blood would surely come into play somehow, he was damned well sure of it. But Tony pushed, and pushed, and tempted, and pleaded. Bruce had sworn himself off to risks since the accident, his last risk not having turned out so well, and it was one hell of a risk that Tony was asking him to take. 

Then Bruce glanced over his shoulder one night, and he had all of the faith in the world. Just enough to make such a leap. 

Tony had always been an artist of sorts, he supposed. Bruce had seen him sketching, but never anything other than blueprints for new inventions, new toys, new suits. But he caught a glimpse of something he figured he wasn't supposed to see, just a small glance at some fantasy of Tony’s. Perhaps another blueprint, something that he would damn well see come to fruition, because it was all it took for Bruce to toss aside his worries in reckless abandon. A sketch of Bruce, wide eyes squinted as he smiled, carrying a child that looked somewhere between them, with Tony’s eyes and Bruce’s curls, on his shoulders. 

It was that night that Bruce finally said it, the words he had been choking down with reason and sense until he damn near lost his mind. 

“I wanna have a baby.” 

Then came joy. Love made that very night, as if they could make a baby right then and there. Followed by brighter smiles, the cease of his suppressants. Then came heat, and a negative, heat, and negative, until heat came and then two pink lines came back. 

Bruce Banner had fallen in love once, his love poured into one person and one person alone. But in his second trimester of pregnancy, Bruce fell in love again, three more times. The whole thing had felt so unreal before that moment, as if lacking some undeniable proof, even beneath ultrasounds and heartbeats and the bump beneath his shirt. They were sounds, images, but nothing tangible. Nothing to be felt, nothing to hold onto, nothing to touch, nothing to feel. But as the first rays of morning light streamed through the window, Tony’s arms wrapped around him, Bruce fell in love with each fluttering movement in his belly as his babies began to kick.


End file.
